# Filed Under #cooperation

### Human cooperation and social network expansion over time

It is generally held that human cooperation first evolved in our ancestral past, when we tended to live in small groups composed mostly of family members, and when cooperation could therefore be selected for by kin selection. This narrative is also sometimes invoked to explain the origin of cooperative mechanisms that are primarily about cooperation between nonkin. For example, in the iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, cooperation between nonkin can be maintained by the tit-for-tat strategy, and a population of tit-for-tat players can resist invasion by defectors. However, tit-for-tat strategists cannot invade a population of defectors (presumably the primordial strategy), and so...

### Stochastic evolutionary dynamics of the Volunteers' Dilemma

The purpose of this blog post is to use a recent paper by Tutić (2021) to teach myself about stochastic evolutionary game theory. Tutić’s (2021) model concerns the Volunteer’s Dilemma, which is a public goods game where the public good is provided if at least one group member cooperates. In the replicator dynamics, cooperators can always invade a population of defectors. However, as the group size increases, the proportion of cooperators in the population at the evolutionary steady-state declines (see Tutić (2021) Fig. 6), which increases the risk that cooperators will be lost from a finite population where stochastic forces...

### Using coalescence models to approximate interaction probabilities in weak selection

To calculate the conditions under which selection favours cooperation, Antal et al. (2009) used interaction probabilities calculated from a coalescence model. However, a coalescence model is a neutral model, it assumes no selective differences between types. So why can they assume no selective difference between types in a selective model? The purpose of this blog post is to explore the explanation detailed in their SI. First, a quick overview of the paper. The model involves the simultaneous evolution of two traits: (1) the strategy in a one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma, either Cooperate or Defect; and (2) a phenotypic tag, modelled as...

### Understanding the neigbour-modulated inclusive fitness approach

The goal is to understand Equation 4.2 of Rodrigues and Kokko (2016). To understand the technique, I read through Taylor et al. (2007), and Taylor and Frank (1996), specifically examples 4, 4a and 4b. Very briefly, we begin with a matrix $$A = [w_{i,j} ]$$ whose elements represent the genetic contribution of class $$j$$ to class $$i$$. Then for some mutant genic value $$x$$, the fitness derivative is $\frac{dW}{dx} = \sum_{i,j} v_i \frac{dw_{i,j}}{dx} u_j$ where $$\mathbf{v}$$ is the left eigenvector of $$A$$ and is the reproductive values, and $$\mathbf{u}$$ is the right eigenvector of $$A$$ and is the class frequencies....

### Evolution of parochialism

Previously I was reading about identity in Singapore, and I found that the government project of creating a national identity is focused upon creating a cosmopolitan mindset (i.e. one of openness and tolerance of difference), and that this interacts in different ways with the two main groups of foreigners, the ‘foreign talent’ and the ‘foreign worker’. The literature review that I did there was focused upon the sociological literature and Singapore specifically. In this post I provide a summary of some reading that I have done on experiments investigating group identity using economic games. I’ve focused specifically upon parochialism in...

### Identity in Singapore, the Internet, and connections to game theory

The following is a literature summary that I undertook as part of my broader interest in modelling social systems, using identity in Singapore as a case study. I should preface all of this by saying that the ideas below are not ‘my own’ as such, but rather my attempt to synthesise the literature and opinions of experts in Singapore. Identity in Singapore Since independence, the Singaporean government has actively worked to construct a civic national identity for the country. Three main phases can be identified (Ortmann, 2009): (1) 1965-1980s, focused primarily upon the objective of economic growth, the idea of...

### Termite eusociality

Termites are eusocial by possessing two subfertile or sterile castes, the worker and the soldier. The consensus is that eusociality in termites is the result of a suite of factors (Thorne, 1997), though the relative importance accorded to each in the literature has shifted over time (Howard and Thorne, 2011). For the purpose of a quick review, I have not looked into mechanisms that appear to have been set-aside in the literature, such as asymmetric relatedness and cycles of inbreeding and outbreeding (cited in Howard and Thorne, 2011). Soldiers Soldiers are monophyletic for all extant termite taxa (citations in Howard...